Processing

We got rid of our cats this week, which I was extremely reluctant to do, but am so glad now that we did. We are now in the process of decatifying (yes I made that word up) our house, and just really doing a gradual deep clean of the house. This is forcing me to do things like update our baby book which I haven't written in since before Tyler had surgery (I mean, what do you put in the one line that is provided for "first doctor's visit"?), go through hospital records that haven't been filed, and put away the hospital bag provided to us from parents of children with heart problems. I realize that it's been almost a month since we've been home, but these things just haven't happened yet. I was looking some of the papers we were given in Edmonton, and I found a short essay written by a parent of a sick child. It hit me hard. She wrote that preparing for a child is like preparing for a trip to Italy. It is exciting and unknown, and you spend months preparing. You are all ready for what to expect - the beauty of the landscape, the amazing food, and excited for the unknown that you will discover. You have bought guide books and learned some of the language. You are ready! However as the plane is landing, it is announced that you will be in fact landing in Holland. This is not what you had planned for! You know nothing about Holland. You will have to learn a whole new language, and will be lost without buying new guidebooks. Holland is not bad though - just different. It may be less flashy and much less traveled, but it has beauty just the same. Many people you know will go to Italy and tell you their wonderful stories and you will think "I was supposed to go there...that is what I had planned". However life is different. The author concludes by saying "...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland".

This is a paraphrase, and I know that Mitch and I are lucky...Tyler will still (Lord willing) live a completely (and complete) normal life. He will thrive and grow as a normal child. However we just took a different route to get there...and our experience will forever be different.